Hacker News Reader

Comment by starkparker | Hacker News Reader

Don't get it twisted, almost every Portland-area school has gone full in on the stupid fucking Yondr pouches, and yeah it fucked up entry/exit: https://katu.com/news/local/portland-students-adapt-to-new-c...

They also begged parents to help pay for them: https://www.govtech.com/education/k-12/portland-schools-ask-...

A friend's kid needs an exemption from their doctor because their phone is also their glucose monitor and diagnostic tracker, and the exception only allows them to unlock the pouch under supervision when necessary.

View on HN

What a vulgar situation. Policy made from a moral panic and - look at that - it is negatively impacting actual people who exist.

It's not a moral panic. There are loads of studies indicating that disconnected classrooms produce better outcomes for students.

I'm not sure what argument there is for allowing all students unfettered access to their phones, but feel free to present one.

There are no reputable studies showing both correlation and causation there.

I'd link to some of the many studies published by reputable sources, but I suspect you'll brush them aside with your caveats

That 'caveat' is the actual science. So it's a pretty big deal.

More meaningless words that can be defined as needed by you to support your rather bizarre agenda.

Numerous peer reviewed articles published in reputable journals have reported that there are advantages to banning cell phones in the classroom, yet you as the sole arbiter of "actual science" declare otherwise.

We don't actually need "actual science" to conclude that phones in classrooms are likely causing problems. We can observe them in action causing problems and take actions even if the peer reviewed double blind study hasn't been done

Actually, we do. That's kind of the entire point of science.

We have to make the best decisions we can with the information we have

The point of science is to provide better information for us to make decisions with, not to prevent us from making decisions at all until it's done

If we waited for science to settle and provide the best information possible, we would never get anything done

I'd argue you don't need a study, just reasoning. I mean, a study would be good, but we also have brains on our shoulders.

Learning to read or to do mathematics is like anything else, it takes practice. We know, intuitively from our own lives and observes virtually all humans, that humans perform better with less distractions. It would be hard to learn how to play the Tuba with me screaming behind you. It would be hard to learn chess with a movie playing in front of you.

Phones are distractions. Less phones = less distractions = better performance, smarter kids, more likelihood to graduate, higher average income.

There can be moral (or other) panics to real dangers. That doesn't mean cool heads don't lead to better solutions.

People panic in fires, trampling one another trying to get out. The danger is real, but so is the damage caused by the panic.

Here people are responding to real harms but we're often jumping to conclusions. Trying to act too fast. Thinking it is better to do something rather than nothing. But that's not always true. We see this happen with all sorts of complex problems we face these days. People care more about having an answer than they do a solution. This one is no different. We get bad answers like the above because people are rushing and not thinking about the consequences. But if things were as easy to solve as were wish they were then they'd already have been solved. The "easy" part only comes after a lot of hard work and really only from a high level

What does this have to do with kids having phones during school?

I'm responding to your comment. It is exactly as on topic as your comment...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com